Corporate fundraising brings many benefits to both the corporate organisation and the charity. The companies can engage its staff, customers and other stakeholders to create collective impact, showcase brand activism and improve its corporate reputation. On the other hand, the charity can also leverage the corporate’s network and influence for more effective fundraising and raise more donations to support its beneficiaries.
In Singapore, corporate organisations can adopt their preferred social causes and charities through NVPC’s online donation platform Giving.sg. One such company which has done so is Maybank. They ran the #HeartofSG campaign in December 2020. The online campaign, together with Maybank’s matching donation, raised $388,000 to support the President’s Challenge Empowering for Life Fund.
We speak with Sharon Eng, Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability of Maybank Singapore, to learn more about how her team ran the campaign and what urged Maybank to give back.
What motivated Maybank to kickstart the #HeartofSG campaign?
Maybank: The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected lives and livelihoods, and many charities have experienced a drop in donations. In line with Maybank’s mission of “Humanising Financial Services”, we wanted to do our part to support communities in need, especially those most affected by the COVID-19 situation.
Through #HeartofSG, our objective was to not only raise funds for the charities, but also raise awareness of social needs, and lend our “voice” for these causes as well as shine a spotlight on the impactful programmes offered by these charities.
How did you choose which charities to support?
Maybank: We decided to support the five charities under President’s Challenge, as their programmes are focused on helping disadvantaged groups in the area of skills upgrading and employment.
The supported charities were:
● Club HEAL, which provides services to peers (people with mental health issues) and their caregivers;
● Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore (MDAS), which empowers persons with muscular dystrophy conditions and their families;
● Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS), which supports both children and adults with intellectual disability;
● Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD), which serves people with disabilities; and
● We Care Community Services, which treats addiction recovery.
Why was Giving.sg chosen as the fundraising platform?
Maybank: As a member of the Company of Good network, we worked with NVPC for this fundraising campaign. This enabled us to focus on the campaign, while leveraging the existing Giving.sg platform capabilities to facilitate donations.
Many charities are already registered with Giving.sg, therefore it is convenient to set up a fundraising campaign for them quickly. NVPC is also an established and trusted partner, so we were also assured by their strong governance measures to ensure that the funds were managed transparently and disbursed properly.
In the past, we have done other internal and external fundraising but these were usually time and resource intensive. A crowdfunding platform like Giving.sg makes it easier to raise more money in a shorter amount of time.
How much was fundraised through Giving.sg?
Maybank: A total of 21 fundraising sub-campaigns were started through this initiative, including from members of the public, Maybank Senior Management and other disability advocates such as Zoe Zora and Alister Ong. The campaign exceeded its target and raised $188,000. To encourage more people to give and to multiply the impact, Maybank pledged to match donations up to S$180,000, bringing the total donation amount to $388,000 for the five charities. In total, we had close to 1,000 donors who supported the campaign, comprising Maybank staff, family and friends, and members of the public.
What was the impact of the fundraising campaign?
Maybank: The donations will go towards the President’s Challenge Empowering for Life Fund, to provide jobs and skills support for 494 persons with disabilities and mental health conditions.
Beyond the fundraising, we were also glad to see that this campaign provided another platform to help raise awareness for the charities. Over the campaign period of two months, there were over 22 million impressions made across all channels, and the charity videos garnered over 42,800 completed views! The charity videos narrated the stories of struggles and triumphs of some of our courageous beneficiaries. To support the charities with their future branding and marketing needs, we also shared the videos with the charities and gave them the rights to reproduce or re-use when needed.
If you are a corporate organisation looking to give back to the community, create your fundraising campaign on www.giving.sg today and make your mark.
